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If you practiced as a transactional attorney before law teaching, chances are that you looked at form agreements provided in treatises, saved on your law firm database, handed to you by partners from past deals, or saved in your own template archives. This is no different from what litigators do either—they look for model existing memos, complaints, document requests, etc. that guide the first draft and let you start somewhere past “zero”. The rapidly changing legal environment and unique needs of each client in each deal limits the shelf life of form agreements and saddles them with all sort of potential downsides if they aren’t used thoughtfully, verified by research, or tailored to the specific deal. This disclaimer aside, I am curious about how we teach students about the role of exemplars, and as a starting point, where to find exemplars. Students and junior attorneys, if not given the right tools to find the best models, will use bad model forms. If you don’t believe me, see what you get when you search for “standard asset purchase agreement”.

This raises the question of where should students, attorneys, law professors wanting to incorporate experiential learning exercise modules into their courses look for these resources.

This post will be the first in a series that will highlight these resources. If you have suggestions for a source, please leave a comment or email me at amtucker@gsu.edu. I will compile a list of sources and link a word document in the final post. If there is interest, I will be happy to update the list over time. For now, the first installment of free, publically available resources. Paid sources will be next.

Comments

Another resource available is the Transactional Training Resource Guide that I published several years ago. It is a bibliography of training materials and articles on teaching transactional skills. It's available at the website for Emory's Center for Transactional Law and Practice. Melissa Bernstein and I are updating the Guide and hope to have a new edition by the end of the summer. Melissa is the Library Director & a Professor of Law at the University of Utah Law School.

Posted by: Tina Stark | Feb 7, 2014 7:41:18 AM

I would recommend the materials I've created in Business Transactions Solutions on Westlaw Next and would be happy to work with anyone interested in adapting them for training new attorneys and/or law students.

Thank you for the suggestions Tina & Alan. Tina, please email me at amtucker@gsu.edu when the updated version of your Transactional Training Resource Guide is available. I will feature it here. Alan, I will include your materials in an upcoming installment of paid resources.

Posted by: Anne Tucker | Feb 19, 2014 11:04:35 AM

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